There are exactly three 3D Mario platformers. One's in the Top Five video games ever made, one doesn't even crack the Top 100, and once it gets a few years under its belt, it's tough to picture Super Mario Galaxy not trending towards the former category. For the first time in a long time, the absolute best game on a Nintendo platform is a Mario game. This is as it should be.

Best Geekfight ProvokerHalo 3

It's like stirring up the red ants and the black ants, and then giving them thermonuclear weaponry. It's either a brilliant cap to the bestest-ever FPS series forged by human hands, or a pointless pile of snot dripping from the Elephant Man's nose, just like the first two. Only worse. Both sides are wrong, of course, but I don't root for the gladiator; I'm here for the blood.

Most Fun Baseless Rumor to StartBungie broke with Microsoft so they could develop for handheld platforms.

But it makes sense, doesn't it? (Real Reason: so they can fully own their next billion-dollar IP.)

Most Addictive Game Not Fueled by DewAny game where advertisers failed to secure blatant and pointless advertising in places it had no business appearing.

Take note, Spike Videogame Awards. A good prostitute can at least pretend it's not entirely for the money.

Best Addition to Gaming Culture"The Cake is a Lie!" from Portal

No less than ten non-gaming people have asked me what this meant in the last three weeks. Soon, we'll have them all spelling "own" with a "p."

Smartest DelaySuper Smash Bros. Brawl

This nearly went to Ratchet & Clank Future's bait-and-switch delay (hey, it extended my "History of Ratchet & Clank" deadline by a week), but Brawl's going to do better business by waiting. Why? More time equals more Wiis built, shipped, and sold. Now watch the Big N try to market it to the casual gamers. Good luck with that, Big N.

Distant Horizon Award for Coolest Unscheduled GameGhostbusters

Oh, how tempting to put Spore here - do you believe Spring '08? But nothing out-smooths Peter Venkman. When gameplay videos popped up on YouTube a year ago, showing guys in jumpsuits busting ghost ass hard, nobody believed it could possibly be true. It is. I'm wary of the developer switch from Zootfly (did the demo but never licensed the IP) to Terminal Reality (Bloodrayne, anybody?), but with Akroyd and Ramis writing for it and everybody from Bill Murray to William Atherton coming back to provide vocals, this has potential to be the biggest global geekgasm since Daleks vs. Cybermen. The only downsides right now are lingering memories of Ghostbusters 2 and certain knowledge that this won't be the once-planned Ghostbusters In Hell... perhaps the only human work where Heaven was depicted at New Jersey.

Runner Up: Dead Space

Geektastic Award of Special MeritM.I.T. pranksters Chief up Mr. Harvard.

You've gotta love the merry pranksters of M.I.T. and their near-constant spanking of longtime nemesis Harvard. In years past, they spray-painted a Triforce on the famed Harvard Dome, but this year, in honor of Halo Day, they played dress-up with the John P. Harvard statue in wide-open Harvard Yard. Academia woke up one day in late September to find His Harvardness decked out in a Spartan-issue helmet and assault rifle, with an M.I.T. mascot - the noble beaver - on the right shoulder. If I had replicas of that quality, I'm fairly sure they'd never leave their hermetically sealed bulletproof glass cases, but these rocket scientists in training just had to share with the class... and the world. Well played, sirs. Well played.

That's it, folks, and we're even finishing under time. See you next year!